Subtle Signs

1. The Jinn-1

1. The Jinn

Circa 960 AD, North Africa.

When Eno managed to reach the road, the sun nearly blinded her. After having passed two days locked in the house of al-Badr Shan, the sun hurt her eyes. She stumbled over the dusty terrain, holding her tummy with her hand.

She felt a dull pain, a pain that made her foresee only disgrace. Something inside of her had broken and all she could do was find a nice place to die.

She would have liked to see the savannah’s orange expanse again, but she knew it was impossible. She was too far from home.

Even if she had managed to get there, her family would certainly not have welcomed her back. But she didn’t care, because her family was probably dead or had been taken away like she had been.

The blood was dripping slowly down her legs, her face hurt and something had broken inside, she knew it. Her life was about to end but she wanted it to end far away from that house.

Al-Badr Shan and his friends would be asleep for another couple of hours, if the Gods were kind. The Gods or the God, the only God that she had been forced to love.

Eno didn’t love anyone. She was empty, injured and she felt death approaching.

She wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t even sorry, not much anyway.

Along the road there were very few people, they moved slowly under the midday heat. Eno covered her face with her veil as best she could, hoping that no one would notice a dirty and beaten up slave. Walking was very difficult for her, but she wanted to distance herself as much as possible from the houses of that town of which she knew nothing about, not even the name, so she could lie down on the ground and die in peace.

She had the impression that several hours passed. Every now and again she would stop to breathe or just to simply lean against a wall.

Finally she put the last house of the town behind her. The sun seemed to have a thousand hands that were pushing her down towards the earth. Around her were low dry-stone walls and a few olive trees. She understood she couldn’t go there to die either. Someone would have seen her and chased her away. Or hit her. Or worse, taken her back to al-Badr Shan. She walked along the stone wall. She tried to walk further but her legs gave way. She leant heavily on her side, hoping that if she rested for a few minutes her strength would come back to her and she could continue.

She wasn’t losing any more blood, which wasn’t a good sign. Her blood had clotted, that’s all. She was still broken. She was still weak and shivering. She was still dying.

She heard some footsteps on the road, two by two. Not human footsteps, but the velvety tread of a dromedary. She stayed still, hoping no one would notice her.

Leave me alone to die in peace, she thought. I won’t get in anyone’s way.

It didn’t work.

The footsteps stopped and Eno heard the sound of the dromedary kneeling down behind her. Then the sound of human steps.

‘I’m sure you’ll get in someone’s way if you die on their perimeter wall,’ said a low and inexpressive voice.

Eno didn’t move. She didn’t ask herself how the owner of that voice could read her thoughts. Sometimes these things happened.

‘Don’t you want to be cured?’ that person spoke again.

Eno shook her head a little. There is nothing that can be done, she thought. I feel it coming. I pray to the Gods to make it painless, even if slow.

‘The Gods,’ repeated the voice of that man. ‘The Gods do what they want, you know. Look at me.’

Strenuously, Eno lifted her head.

The man was covered in a large black djellabah, which must have made him very hot, and even the shemagh that he wore on his head and around his face was of a very thick material, almost winter-like. The most impressive thing about him was his face.

His pale skin, white like a Jasmine flower. Eno was afraid of that skin and those yellow-blue eyes. Even in her race there were people like him. They said that they were ghosts. Or a curse. They said those light eyes could scrutinize all of eternity. But that man wasn’t of her race, she could tell by his facial features. He was one of the pink men she had seen in Cairo, slaves like her.

‘Do you fear me more than you fear death?’ the stranger asked.

Eno nodded feebly.

The man didn’t seem offended by her confession, but he didn’t seem pleased either. He looked at her with a curious expression.

‘Ah, I’m going to take you anyway,’ he concluded. ‘Wonder, not resignation, is the real gift of the Gods. I should know, since I’m one of them.’

He picked her up behind her knees and her back. He lifted her as though she were made of papyrus.

He then got back on the dromedary and the animal stood up. He fixed her properly on his leather and wooden saddle, leaving her bare feet dangling on the dromedary’s side.

Eno abandoned her head against his shoulder, too weak to protest.

She was thirsty and shivering with cold, in spite of the heat. She was also sweating. The man brought his hand to her mouth and placed his fingers near her lips. ‘Suck,’ he said.

Eno didn’t move and she felt his two fingers open her mouth and touch her tongue. She let out a little groan of pain, because her face was swollen and bruised. She felt something on her tongue, a few drops of a salty liquid. Blood.

Eno tried to spit it out, disgusted, but they were just a few drops and they dispersed into her mouth.

Immediately she began to feel a warm and pleasurable sensation diffuse through her body. Her tongue was tingling and she felt this tingling sensation spread from her mouth, all over her.

She felt worried, she looked at the man’s eyes.

‘It’s not killing you, it’s healing you,’ he said. ‘Slowly, because right now you can’t drink too much.’

He didn’t say anything more and Eno didn’t ask. She abandoned herself to the rocking of the dromedary, with her eyes closed.

He could really be a God, she thought. A God she had never heard anything about.

Or a demon of the desert, a jinn.

She dozed off with this thought in mind.

+++

When she woke she was alone in the saddle. It was a desert nomad’s saddle, so it held her around her waist and prevented her from falling. The dromedary continued slowly forwards in a wave-like motion.

Eno looked around, confused. They were in a semi-desert area, on a caravan trail, the sun had just set. The albino was walking beside the dromedary, calmly guiding him.

So it wasn’t all a trick her mind had played on her: he really did exist.

In that moment she realised that she felt much better. She was still weak and beaten up, but she didn’t have that feeling that she was going to die at that very moment in time. After this realisation, came fear. Who was this being? Was he really a jinn, a spirit? Or was he a very strange human being?

‘That depends,’ he said, continuing to walk. ‘Is it important?’

‘Y-you… hear my thoughts…’ she murmured.

‘Yes,’ he admitted simply. ‘And I also feel that you are tired, that you are hungry and that you are scared.’

Naturally she was scared. He had saved her life, this was true, but now she belonged to him and she had no evidence that the situation had improved.

‘I don’t care about owning you,’ he explained, in a calm tone. ‘I don’t have any desire to be your master.’

Eno blinked slowly. So she could leave?

‘Of course you can leave. We are on the coastal trail. If you continue straight ahead, sooner or later you’ll get to Oea… what’s it called now? Near the oasis of Giafàra.’

‘I don’t know these lands,’ said Eno.

The other sighed imperceptibly. ‘If you turn back, you’ll get to Cairo in five or six days. Do you know that city?’

Eno knew Cairo. That’s where they had taken her, after having ripped her away from her people. There, they had sold her to al-Badr Shan. How much time had passed? She didn’t know anymore. When they made her a prisoner she had become a woman of ten moons. The time passed in a… strange way. Forcefully going forwards, infinitely… she didn’t know anymore. Maybe ten moons had passed, maybe more.

‘I think you are about fifteen years old,’ said the albino.

Eno didn’t know what that meant.

‘Do you know how to read?’ he asked her.

Eno didn’t know very well what that meant either. She knew it was when you looked at small curved symbols and they spoke back to you.

‘Yes, that’s right. That’s not the only alphabet that exists, you know? And you can learn as well.’

Eno didn’t see why she would need to.

The albino smiled to some degree. ‘I didn’t see the reason why I needed to either… a long time ago. We’ll talk about it again. Now let’s stop for the night. I have some food for you. Some water. I’ll finish healing you, if you wish.’

Eno nodded weakly. She didn’t understand, but she didn’t have the strength to ask for explanations.

The albino led the dromedary to a lonely fig tree. The animal knelt down and he took her under her armpits, pulling her out of the saddle without any effort. He placed her on the ground and Eno’s knees gave way.

‘You’re still weak. Stay sitting down.’

She saw him take a tent that was rolled up on the dromedary’s saddle and unravel it. Then she didn’t see him anymore. Or rather… he was still there and he was moving very, very quickly, like the desert wind. Maybe he had become the wind of the desert. The tent was pitched in front of her eyes by that supernatural power and it lifted in front of her.

Eno began to cry under her breath.

So he was a jinn. That’s what the men of the desert who had made her a slave called them. And if they feared the jinn and they were strong and hard, shouldn’t she also fear him?

The man appeared next to her and he lifted her up from the ground, taking her inside the magic tent. Eno closed her eyes, scared to death.

‘No, you don’t understand,’ the man murmured, placing her on a blanket. It must have been a blanket. It was too dark to see. ‘I don’t intend to harm you.’ Perhaps sensing that the darkness was scaring her, the albino turned on a small lamp. The light remained dim and yellowish.

He took off his grey shemagh, that he wore on his head and around his face, revealing some pale long hair, plaited in small braids and held firmly with bone clips.

He opened a saddlebag and he let her drink from a leather water bottle. It was warm water which was like nectar to Eno.

She stayed there, on that blanket, resting on one elbow, while he fed her. He gave her dates and figs, some dried meat. He gave her more water.

Eno ate from his hands, humbly. Even if it was true that he would let her go… where could she have gone?

‘Can I take your veil off?’ he asked.

Eno shrugged. When she was with her people she didn’t wear a veil. She didn’t even wear those long robes that the men who had imprisoned her had made her wear.

The man took a bone comb and began brushing her black frizzy hair, sprinkled with dust and sweat. His hands were delicate and gentle. He still scared her, but less than earlier.

‘Good,’ he said.

He never smiled, Eno thought, looking at his face. His sharp face, with a thin and strange nose, like that of the pink slaves.

‘Yes, I come from the north. From the true north, you know, but even there I don’t pass unnoticed.’ He styled her hair in a way that they wouldn’t collect dust around her head, with quick and expert fingers. ‘Now I’ll finish healing you. I’m going west. I’ll continue along the coastline, right until the end. Then I’ll cross the sea and I’ll go to the Iberian lands. To Al-Andalus… have you heard of it?’

Eno shook her head.

‘Hmm. Doesn’t matter. If you want to come with me, you need to be strong.’